This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

Author Topic: 3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder  (Read 3347 times)

kythri

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 880
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« on: June 05, 2019, 05:10:06 PM »
I'd like to know your opinions on the following:

Regarding the three systems (3E, 3.5 and Pathfinder):

What issues were there in 3E that 3.5 fixed?
What issues were there in 3.5 that Pathfinder fixed?
What issues were there that 3.5 made worse?
What issues were there that Pathfinder made worse?
What have you house ruled in your 3E / 3.5 / Pathfinder game?  What have you rolled back to a previous version?

I'll start with an example - 3E allowed Keen to stack with Improved Critical.  3.5 removed that.  I don't think that was an issue, and have house-ruled it back in my games.

Steven Mitchell

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • S
  • Posts: 3770
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2019, 05:27:05 PM »
My answer is from someone that checked out of 3.5 early, and thus never had any interest in PF.  So consider the source on these answers:

1. 3.5 added a lot of language around 3E rules that didn't really clarify anything, but rather provided more text for the GM to wade through (if so inclined) before making a ruling.  Since sometimes both 3E and 3.5 were "wrong" compared to the GM ruling, this was something 3E did "better".  Though it might be more accurate to say that 3E was "less bad".

2. The 3.5 Ranger and Bard are better than the 3E equivalents, but still not fixed.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

3. The rules for 3.5 skills are better than the 3E version, but still not fixed (and not even fixable, given how embedded they are in core system problems).  Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

I hear rumors that some of the later 3.5 supplements had some nifty options, but by then I'd burnt out on all 3.*/PF mechanics and their various derivative systems.

GnomeWorks

  • Hates Elf Adventurers
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 827
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2019, 05:31:49 PM »
Quote from: kythri;1090769
What issues were there in 3E that 3.5 fixed?


Rangers and bards were made less garbage, if I recall correctly.

Nerfing haste was probably a good call, just because of action economy.

Most of the other changes were fiddly and/or dumb. Messing with buff durations didn't make the game noticeably better, for instance, but it didn't make things worse, either - just different.

Quote
What issues were there in 3.5 that Pathfinder fixed?


...racial ability scores, maybe?

PF compared to 3.5 is mostly just rearranging the chairs. 3.5 had a lot of acknowledged problems, none of which PF actually fixed. While the skill system is a mild improvement, it's still a lot of bookkeeping and has its own set of weird results.

Quote
What issues were there that 3.5 made worse?


I don't recall seeing anything that made me actively prefer 3e over 3.5. As I said, there were fiddly changes, but there were enough good changes (bard, ranger) that it was worth dealing with the minor changes.

Quote
What issues were there that Pathfinder made worse?


At first it seemed like a fair improvement. At this point, though, the system is bloated as all hell, and it has way too many fiddly bits.

Quote
What have you house ruled in your 3E / 3.5 / Pathfinder game?  What have you rolled back to a previous version?


Wrote a whole list of homebrew classes, banned all the original classes, ripped out the skill system, rewrote feats, wrote new spell systems, reworked equipment and magic items, made significant modifications to how wealth works, went to a 4e-style monster design paradigm, changed how HP and damage scale across the board...

I think at this point the only things that my games have recognizably in common with 3.5 are (1) it's vaguely d20-based, (2) we have the six traditional D&D ability scores (plus some others), and (3) we have the standard D&D races, along with a whole bunch of others.

You could not bring a vanilla 3.5 character into my games. Wouldn't even begin to work.
Mechanics should reflect flavor. Always.
Running: Chrono Break: Dragon Heist + Curse of the Crimson Throne AP + Egg of the Phoenix (D&D 5e).
Planning: Rappan Athuk (D&D 5e).

camazotz

  • Zodiac God
  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 411
    • http://www.lulu.com/camazotz
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2019, 05:42:29 PM »
Well, my recollection of some highlights includes the following:

3.5 fixed issues with spider climb and spiders (3.0 had spiders and spider climb users making skill checks and falling to their death frequently*); rangers were fixed, prestige classes with spells were fixed, and a ton of combat mechanical language/focus was shifted toward an emphasis on minis/maps use (not a fix, but a change to help focus marketing the WotC's figures and maps sales by making it harder to play without them. 3.5 also, as I understand it, codified some of the rules in place which made the CoDzilla problem more prominent. It also didn't fix grappling or make maneuvers easier to determine.

Pathfinder fixed a bunch of stuff: skill system became better, class designs more flexy overall, and the thematic intent became important in classes that shifted it away from endless class and prestige class designs (a bit, anyway). Stacking modifiers were brought a bit under control. The concept of low cost orisons and cantrips was implemented to good effect. Some trap feats were modified or removed. It introduced a fairly accessible Combat Maneuver mechanic for unarmed and trick maneuver actions.

Pathfinder still led to system bloat. It still had balance issues at high levels. Stacking wasn't fixed anywhere close to enough. Some of the depth of class design led to decision paralysis for players, or felt like quibbling over piles of crumbs to figure out which pile was bigger. Pathfinder design often erred on the side of caution, aiming for somewhat mitigated designs but this did not please the base who hated it when a new class or feature wasn't as (or more) mechanically valuable as prior classes, leading to situations where entire tomes (Wilderness Adventures cough) would get derided as useless.

--probably a lot more than I can think of, but that's what I've noticed. I personally like Pathfinder quite a bit, but barring some serious oddities in 3.0 felt I got the best (albeit brief) play experience with it in those three short years when it was 3.0 D&D but we were all still playing it like it was an actual old school D&D game and players hadn't succumbed to the system mastery min/max mindset.

I had a mix of house rules but the only one I liked much was a spell point mechanic I used.


*If you sense that I lost more than a few characters to a failed climb check with spider climb you would be right. The DM also lost more than a few spiders.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2019, 05:50:06 PM by camazotz »

Chris24601

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • C
  • Posts: 3324
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2019, 06:54:39 PM »
3.0 > 3.5: As mentioned, the ranger and bard were notably improved. I consider the Bard the gold standard for what 3.5e class should be; strong in its area of expertise (party buffing), good in other areas (skills, fighting, utility spells), but lacking game breaking abilities that DMs can't reasonably begin to account for (ex. high level clerics, druids, wizards and sorcerers).

A number of spells got tweaked. Without the danger of aging with every use spellcasters using Haste to cast two spells per round became so pervasive that modules had to have enemy casters use the same tactic or present no challenge at all. Hold Person and similar spells picked up a save to end the effect early every round instead of putting someone out of action for 30+ rounds due to one failed save as in 3e.

Another critical change was to damage reduction and energy resistance, which in 3e were scaled so high that it often functioned as invulnerability (DR 20/+2 meant that without a +2 or better weapon you were knocking 20 points off each hit from a weapon when a fighter's attacks are unlikely to ever do 20 damage without a +2 or better weapon and significant magic buffs on top... DR 30/+3 or 40/+4 should have just used AD&Ds "need +X or better weapon to hit" as it would have been more honest).

Instead they dropped the DR down to 5 (low-level) 10 (high level) or 15 (very high level) with materials needed to bypass (ex. any magic weapon, silver, cold iron, adamantine). 5 points is annoying to a low level fighter trying to bring down a werewolf without a silver weapon, but two-handing a longsword and a 16 Str would let them do 1d8+4 so only their worst rolls are doing nothing... and a silver dagger (1d4+3) becomes a viable choice in that case.

The other thing that 3.5e had over 3e was time to grow. I've mentioned before that late 3e with all the splats but all the tier 1-2 and 5-6 classes banned runs much much smoother than early 3.5 or any version of 3e precisely because it had sufficient time to work out the kinks.

3.5e > PF lost almost all that late 3.5e strength because the OGL only covered the core books and a bit of other pieces like Deities & Demigods and Unearthed Arcana options. It was absolutely a step up from early 3.5e, but the Paizo crew didn't do much but imitate rather than innovate (many of the strongest PF options like "Spheres of Power" were third-party supplements which could have just as easily been written for 3.5e). Their primary strength and marketing model was its Adventure Paths (and even there the mechanics were mediocre; the Kingmaker domain rules fall apart if you squint at them too hard for example... you're better off using the Basic domain and mass combat rules).

Limited to just those three options, late 3.5e wins every single time... particularly with Reserve feats, Skill Tricks and classes like the Warlock, Totemist, Crusader, Swordsage and Warblade in the mix (the latter three essentially being fixed versions of the Paladin, Monk and Fighter... the three weakest classes in the PHB).

JeremyR

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1778
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2019, 11:05:56 PM »
The thing with 3.5 was they had different sized weapons. Like you'd have a regular longsword and then a small longsword (for small people). Every weapon had different sizes. It seemed like overkill to a problem that probably didn't exist.

Razor 007

  • Razor 007
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1319
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2019, 11:41:24 PM »
3.0 to 3.5 to PF

The books kept getting better.  PF has some choice books in the series.  The Bestiaries, Advanced Player's Guide, NPC Codex, Monster Codex, Ultimate Magic, etc.

They cover the spectrum well.
I need you to roll a perception check.....

Charon's Little Helper

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 689
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2019, 12:33:03 AM »
I never played 3.0 as I started playing RPGs right as 3.5 came out.

PF fixed some of the worst spell offenders (polymorph and a few other self-buffs) but they did make summoning spells a bit worse.

Overall the class balance got better over time. In PF there was actually a good reason to play a fighter beyond a 2 level dip to qualify for a prestige class. In class balance PF>3.5>3. For the first 8ish levels of Pathfinder pretty much any class can sit down at the table together without feeling overshadowed so long as rogues & monks use the unchained variants. (or a monk who knows what he's doing with multiple archetypes) Though much into the double digits and the system starts to break down just like 3.x as the framework just starts to break.

PF also streamlined the maneuver system (trip/disarm/grapple/etc.) though in the process they accidentally made it less viable at high levels (in the teens) against many monsters.

PF made crits & sneak attack work against nearly everything. (Exceptions for oozes & elementals - and that's about it.)

I'd say that overall PF's quality of supplement was a bit better, and I generally preferred PF's archetypes to 3.x's prestige classes, because you could play your character concept from level 1 instead of having to pick weird stuff until level 5-6 to qualify. However, an unintended negative consequence of less multi-classing for martials was that their average saving throws dropped a bit, as most builds in 3.x had lots of extra +2s from those first level boosts. That, and I have mixed feelings about all the +0 LA races with bonuses to mental stats. With a few (generally considered OP) exceptions, bonuses to mental stats in 3.x guaranteed LA - and the change meant that all wizards were either elf or one of the three anything races (human/half-orc/half-elf), all sorcerers were gnome/halfling/anything race etc.

Abraxus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2434
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2019, 06:33:25 AM »
Rangers and Bard as another poster pointed out were not that great as classes imo in 3E and 3.5 fixed that. Spell Buffs durations were downgraded because apparently having Mage Armor and other buffs from spells last longer than usual broke too many tables. Monsters had feats added to them in the 3.5. Monster Manual which I liked because why would the monsters not have feats like players.

Pathfinder was and is a mixed bag in terms of what it did good and bad. Good it made the Paladin class viable past tenth level. As after tenth level your getting crap in therms of class options imo. More removing disease and smite evil options. I also like what they did with Bards and Barbarians. More importantly they actually made Sorcerers well feel interesting as a class instead of 3.5 "the blood of dragons flows through one veins" trope with the addition of bloodlines. Charon is correct that they made the Combat Maneuver section better and worse at the same time.

What Pathfinder did worse they did very little to address the Linear Fighter Quadratic issue if one tried to bring it up as an issue apparently according to one of their devs whomever does has an agenda they are trying to push. Their Archetypes were hit or miss and usually very much miss than hit in terms of design. Taking away a major class feature of say the Druid to replace it with a +1 to hit or skill check is not going to make me want to take the Archetype. Playtesting process for their products which is a sham more than anything else and less to fix actual issues with their rpg. Many playtesters told them over and over before their gun rules went to print to not keep them as is because it would make one ranged weapon better than the others. They told everyone involved that it was being taken under advisement and last minute left them as is with a polite "too bad so sad suck it up" because of that guns are too powerful imo. Stubborn refusal to find the proper middle ground in terms of designing new material either it is too good  say like Sacred Geometry or not worth taking such as the Geisha Archetype. Hopefully the group always has ten minutes or more to waste before a battle so the Geisha to use her special class ability. To nerfing things such as Crane Wing because Organized play DMs could not handle certain builds using that ability.

To thinking that fluff beats crunch which is never the case imo becase no matter how one puts pretty prose in the description of a +1 feat it still is a +1 feat. To doing half assed jobs when offering new options such as the Grey Paladin downgrading the class. To taking so long and in some cases fixing the issues poorly that once 5E was released they lost much market share because lo and behold when the competition actually fixes the issues of an rpg engine many gamers will buy the new edition rather than deal with an older editions flaws.

Chris24601

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • C
  • Posts: 3324
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2019, 02:44:46 PM »
Quote from: sureshot;1090857
Pathfinder was and is a mixed bag in terms of what it did good and bad. Good it made the Paladin class viable past tenth level.

To be fair, 3.5 also fixed the Paladin, they just called it the Crusader (also their fixed fighter is called the Warblade and the fixed Monk is called the Swordsage). After the gripes of having to rebuy everything going from 3 to 3.5e they'd never have gotten away with a third iteration of the PHB, so they made them new classes instead.

Indeed, if you use the splats there are solid tier 3-4 subtitutions for all the overperfoming and underperforming classes;

- Barbarian: Already tier 4, but skill tricks and some of the later feats really make it shine.
- Bard: the definitive tier 3 class, particularly with skill tricks and complete adventurer spells.
- Cleric: The tier 3 approach is to use the Divine Bard option (from the SRD). The Adept NPC class is a tier 4 alternative, but could be bumped to Tier 3 by giving them cleric domains and spontaneous casting of their domain spells.
- Druid: Use the Savage Bard variant (available in the d20 SRD) combined with the "Other Variant" from the SRD that drops its Bardic Lore and Music to gain the Druid's animal companion, nature sense, resist nature lure and wild empathy features. For one more focused on Wildshape, go with the Wild Shape variant Ranger (also from the SRD).
- Fighter: Replace it with the Warblade. It's everything the fighter should have been.
- Monk: Replace it with the Swordsage or Psychic Warrior depending on your preference.
- Paladin: Use the Crusader. It is to the Paladin what the Warblade is to the Fighter.
- Ranger: The Ranger is a strong tier 4, but look at alternate class features since the previously mentioned Wildshape variant can hit a solid tier 3.
- Rogue: The Rogue is also tier 4. For a more flexible skill monkey type, go with the tier 3 Factotum.
- Sorcerer and Wizard: Pick a focus and use one of the following classes; Beguiler, Binder, Dread Necromancer or Warmage. If you want sorcerers to feel very different from traditional casters, try the Warlock, Dragon Disciple or Totemist.

Shawn Driscoll

  • Role-Play Purist
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2928
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #10 on: June 06, 2019, 06:37:04 PM »
If you hated WotC for what it did to D&D, you bought Pathfinder. Plain and simple. That was the only reason for buying Pathfinder.

Shasarak

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4032
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #11 on: June 06, 2019, 11:33:35 PM »
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1090970
If you hated WotC for what it did to D&D, you bought Pathfinder. Plain and simple. That was the only reason for buying Pathfinder.

I must admit 4e is a pretty damn good reason for buying Pathfinder.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

Razor 007

  • Razor 007
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1319
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #12 on: June 07, 2019, 12:51:28 AM »
Quote from: Shasarak;1091003
I must admit 4e is a pretty damn good reason for buying Pathfinder.


Ha!!!  I own 4E too.  It's different...
I need you to roll a perception check.....

Abraxus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2434
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #13 on: June 07, 2019, 06:32:30 AM »
I still think what killed 4E was the presentation of less like an traditional rpg and more for the mmo crowd. Not I am not saying it runs or plays like one just how they presented the rules. As 5E has many aspects of 4E included in it yet written more like a traditional rpg.

Malfi

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • M
  • Posts: 75
3E vs. 3.5 vs. Pathfinder
« Reply #14 on: June 07, 2019, 06:33:52 AM »
Being mainly a 3.5/Pathfinder player, the weird thing about these editions is how easy it is to cast spells (compared to the old ones). This resulted in the spelcasters rule meme and then resulted in the slow but sure descent to modern dnd spellcasters having weaker spells. Just see the spell durations and effects in 5e and playtest pathfinder 2nd.
3rd edition and co really dropped the ball with spellcasting mechanics and feats.

I mean there should be a middle ground between the super difficult way to cast spells into combat in adnd and the super easy in dnd 3.5.